Post-Cold War
imperialism
Rashed Rahman
The certainties
of the Cold War era gave way after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 to
the complexities of our present world. These complexities have been exacerbated
by the blatant attempts by the US-led western powers to reshape the
geopolitical map of the world in their favour. Amidst talk in the 1990s of the
emergence of a unipolar world dominated by the US with its western allies in
tow, the simplistic notion fashionable in western capitals that the world lay
supine beneath their feet (a ‘new world order’) and no other power could
possibly challenge the drive for global hegemony by the west has proved to be
an illusion.
Nothing
encapsulates these illusions and the reality of resistance to these hegemonic
designs better than the western attempts to redraw the geopolitical map of the
long simmering cauldron called the Middle East. Starting with Iraq, which under
Saddam Hussein was first inveigled into an eight-year war against Iran, later
deceived into thinking the west would turn a blind eye to his invasion of
Kuwait, through the regime change in Libya to the proxy intervention in Syria,
the US-led west has weighed in to remove the three regimes that were the last
anti-Israel countries in the Arab world (the rest had either signed peace
treaties with Israel or given up the ghost of even lip service to resistance to
the expansionist Zionist state, abandoning in the process the Palestinian
people to their tragic fate). The defeat of Saddam in Kuwait laid the foundations
for the 2003 invasion on the fraudulent charge of Iraq possessing weapons of
mass destruction and his eventual overthrow and hanging. The successor regime
in Baghdad can be considered a western satrap.
The ‘success’ in
Iraq (which destroyed one of the most advanced and developed countries of the
Arab world) emboldened our latter-day imperialists to take out Muammar Gaddafi
in Libya, using the pretext of a UN Security Council Right to Protect
resolution. Russia and China went along, not realising the trap the west had
set to camouflage their intervention in Libya as protection of the Libyan
people (i.e. those opposed to Gaddafi). Based on that sobering experience, both
Russia and China refused to be deceived over the proxy intervention in Syria.
Russia in
particular drew a line in the sand of the Syrian desert. This was in the wake
of Russia’s experience since 1991 of a west engaged in NATO creep in Eastern
Europe and the former territories of the Soviet Union in that region and
attempts to subvert and replace pro-Moscow regimes in Georgia and Ukraine. In
both these latter cases, Moscow’s resistance to these designs has produced a de
facto partition between pro- and anti-Moscow zones/regimes. This NATO creep and
attempts to ‘recruit’ countries to the western alliance in the ‘near abroad’
was in direct contradiction to the false assurances of US President Ronald
Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev when he asked the latter to tear down
the Berlin Wall (this happened in 1989 and proved the beginning of the break up
of the Soviet Union into 15 independent states, the collapse of socialist
regimes in Eastern Europe and the emergence of the so-called new world order).
Russia’s last
remaining steadfast ally in the Middle East, Syria, is still technically at war
with Israel, particularly given that Israel has blatantly in violation of international
law (for which Tel Aviv has hardly ever given a fig) annexed the Syrian
territory of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 war. The last
remaining anti-Israel redoubt in the Arab world was sought to be subjected to
regime change through proxy fundamentalist and terrorist organisations,
including ironically the al Qaeda-aligned Nusra Front. The entry of Islamic State
(IS) in the Iraq-Syria theatre complicated the conflict in Syria into a
many-sided war. On the one side were Syria, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, on the
other the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The third corner in this
triangular conflict was IS.
A strange
situation emerged as the Syrian conflict played out over the last eight years.
Ostensibly the US and the west were supporting their proxies in the SDF against
both the Damascus regime as well as IS. The Syrian Kurds became late allies of
the US as they gained fighting capacity and territory. Ostensibly, the US
mission was to defeat IS and then withdraw its 2,000 troops in the country, a goal
US President Donald Trump reiterated just days before he, in collaboration with
Britain and France, launched missile strikes on Syria for alleged chemical
weapons attacks by the Assad regime.
The SDF has by
now virtually collapsed as a fighting force despite millions of dollars and
weapons supplied by the US and the west. The Assad regime and its allies are on
the verge of victory. The alleged chemical attack has failed to establish its
credibility and been lambasted by many sources as a false flag operation to
justify the strikes. What Washington, London and Paris hope to gain by such
blatant aggression and violation of international law (no self-defence plea or
UN Security Council approval available) seems unclear to even themselves at
this juncture. The strikes were carefully limited and calibrated to avoid
Russian targets in Syria after Moscow warned of retaliation if any of its
personnel or installations came under threat. The strikes have had little or no
tactical or strategic impact. Assad and his allies seem set on the path of
victory, a big blow to the west and its regional satraps such as Saudi Arabia.
Does the defeat
of the western backed proxy war for regime change in Syria signal a new turn in
regional and global politics? It would appear so. Russia has been under
‘attack’ since President Vladimir Putin succeeded in turning round the fortunes
of his country. Russia is now poised to reassert itself on the world stage,
defend its friends and allies abroad, and protect its interests in its near
abroad. Along with the rise of China as a capitalist powerhouse, the west’s
hegemony plans appear, if not in disarray, at least facing a very different
scenario from what was sketched in the 1990s.
Imperialism is
not just a strategic or geopolitical desire of the developed countries. It is
the logical outcome of the dynamic of capitalist development which, not content
with the limitations of domestic markets, is impelled by the logic of
capitalist development to seek new markets, sources of raw materials and,
increasingly since the spread of the capitalist order in the 21st century
(globalisation), location of industry and trade in the developing world. In the
wake of this historically observed compulsion of the capitalist system comes
war, conquest and regime change to the benefit of the developed capitalist countries.
It is ominous
and salutary therefore to reflect on the fact that historically capitalism may
have given birth to colonialism and imperialism with their concomitant exploitation,
cruelties and repression, but even when it seemingly had triumphed after the
Cold War ended, the capitalist system, because of its inherent internal
dynamic, remains the single greatest and most dangerous source of war and
conflict in the world. It is therefore incumbent on the peoples of both the
developing and developed world to combat this source of grief and usher in a system
that speaks for and to the needs and aspirations of the 99 percent, not the fat
cat one percent that rules the global roost today.
rashed-rahman.blogspot.com
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